


Life like Weeds

by RubenMcguben



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Bruce Needs a Hug, M/M, he sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 22:38:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18726259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubenMcguben/pseuds/RubenMcguben
Summary: Nobody's having a good time, I don't think.





	Life like Weeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RhodeIsland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhodeIsland/gifts).



He really didn’t like to do this, he only did it once in a blue moon and even then it was too much. The bench chair was cold, it was getting colder as winter approached in Gotham, he was now able to see his breaths filter through the air in white puffs. Everything had gone well… until it hadn’t, but that wasn’t a big surprise. Ever since those two had come into his life, things hadn’t gone as planned. It wasn’t all that bad, it made his life interesting enough though.

 

His fingers shook, he wasn’t sure that he could even remember the last time that he’d lit one up, he never made it a habit thankfully. He’d been stuck on the same damn pack of cigarettes for years.

 

The first time he ever lit one up — had ever taken a puff of tobacco — was the day after his parents had… He went into his parents room and stole his father’s old pipe. The moment the smoke entered his lungs he coughed so hard that he almost threw up, at the time he couldn’t understand why his father would do that to himself.

 

At the tender age of twelve he smoked until he threw up on the floor and he cried his little heart out. He can’t even remember why he did it at the time, maybe he wanted some normality, some comfort.

 

It didn’t matter now.

 

He bought this pack of cigarettes with Jerome, back when he’d first met him, when they were friends and nothing more, and maybe Jerome hadn’t even cared about him. He was fifteen then, Jerome eighteen. They were sitting out on the edge of a building that got abandoned, he smiles at the memory, how casually Jerome got them for him.

 

He didn’t know about his childhood then, by extension Jeremiah’s, but he was shocked that he just… gave them to him. This person that he’d barely knew was giving him a full pack of menthol flavored cigarettes.

 

He remembers how hard the other laughed when he practically blew smoke out of his ears, sputtering out harsh breaths with tears in his eyes. Jerome’s laugh was hoarse from the smoke and full of joviality and humor. He swallows at the thought of that building being torn down, those happy memories leaving with it.

 

Opening the withered top is like reading a familiar book he’s read a thousand times. It’s nostalgic and he already knows what’s going to happen because he practically knows the ending by heart. Like the time when they were all in bed that first night in his room and he and Jeremiah just wanted to sleep and Jerome loudly insisted he wouldn’t go to bed until he was ready for it.

 

 _‘I’ll hit the hay when I damn well please,_ _darlin’_ _.’_ Just to get him to shut the fuck up he read him one of the books from his shelves.

 

 _The Girl on The Train_ has been a favorite of Jerome’s ever since, even if he doesn’t like to read it himself.

 

The white paper gets held between his lips and he searches his coat pocket for the lighter he has. It was a birthday present from Jeremiah, all decorative and ornate and over the top as he is, he thought it was beautiful, still thinks it’s beautiful, but it isn’t the same. Just as pretty as the day he saw him, just in a different way.

 

When he finally finds it, he takes it out, the sleek black plastic glittering in the porch light. It would be a shame to see his garden go up in flames again if he ever dropped his lighter. The flames are bright and dangerously alluring as he lights the end of the stick, he can see why Jerome ever got into arson in the first place.

 

The first breath he takes almost makes him regret taking a smoke at all, it’s harsh and disgusting and it makes his eyes burn in a way that reminds him of allergies. Reminds him of the time that he caught hay-fever and he didn’t leave the house for three days.

 

Smoke invades his lungs and for a second it reminds him of cold night air that makes him feel like he’s choking, or Jerome and Miah actually putting their hands on his throat late at night, when it’s just them and they don’t have to worry about keeping quiet.

 

He holds it and lets go of it, the smoke burning and soothing his lungs at the same time, his eyebrows scrunch up on his forehead. Everything smells like burning hair, and it doesn’t help like he thought it would to have a smoke, because instead of clearing up his thoughts it just makes his nose runny, which he thinks is extremely disgusting. He can feel it.

 

Not seeing anything else to do, he keeps puffing away at it, the paper burning bright orange and fluttering away in ash at the slight breeze. He always thought that orange was a nice color, always thought that Jeremiah looked nice with orange hair, he kinda wishes he’d let the dye get washed away and cut out and have his natural color back, that’ll never happen though.

 

He’s still shaking as he looks down at the cigarette, now seeing the white paper being stained with red fingerprints, sticking to the impeccably clean cancer stick. Staring at the red makes his chest ache, so he looks away and doesn’t think about it.

 

Bruce is so stressed at this point that he’d swipe his shaking fingers through his hair, mess up the gel and go back inside, have Jerome and Jeremiah card their long fingers through his hair because they like when he goes without product in it, when it stays nice and wavy and soft.

 

He isn’t though, because that would get their blood in his hair.

 

He scrunches up his eyes as he tries to forcefully rip the image of Jerome wallowing on the ground away, red spilling on the concrete. Tries to forget the way Jeremiah’s nose got crunched the sick noise it made when the bone ripped through his dreadfully pale skin. Wants desperately to lock away the sight and the feel of kneeling next to both of their bodies, unconscious and borderline dead on the street and trying to stop the blood from leaving.

 

They’re inside the house, getting the best treatment that he could possibly get them, and he’s out here smoking a cigarette, doing absolutely _nothing,_ sitting on his useless _ass,_ when he should be inside helping and _comforting_ them-

 

He can’t even stomach the thought of if they both died in there while he’s-

 

He chokes on the smoke he has, his teeth crunching into the small stick of wrapped tobacco and he immediately spits it out. He realizes he looks like a wreck, but he’s sitting on the bench on his backyard porch, worrying about if his stupid ass clowns are gonna-

 

_Stop._

 

He feels something hot stream down his cheeks and he thinks about the fact that he hasn’t cried in almost six years. Digs his wrists into his sockets as he snorts snot and choked up breath. Banging his head back against the wall, he remembers Jerome said that it helped him think, but he can’t think of anything right now. Can’t even try.

 

Shifting, the bench creaks, the wood old and fragile and worn out, stressed out. His eye twitches, _‘Suck it up, Buttercup,’_ Something Jay says to Miah on the daily when he thinks that Miah’s being too picky.

 

His smile is wobbly and watery, he starts bouncing his knee and the wood of the porch makes a sound that Jeremiah would absolutely _hate._ He takes out another cigarette, and he’s so stressed, he thinks, that he might just smoke the whole damn pack.

 

He lights it up and it goes by too fast and by then he’s left with a pathetic little stub of barely together ash. The blood on his hands has dried, leaving his skin feeling nasty and sticky, the thick layer cracking when he flexes his fingers. This time he does mess up his hair like he wanted, the dark strand falling in front of his face and tickling his cold ears. Taking a last puff of it, he drops it and stands up from the bench, snuffing out the flame with his shoe.

 

He swallows and wipes away the tears, putting back on his poker face, he doesn’t want them to see him like this, they’ve never seen him like this and he doesn’t want them to now.

 

Without a second thought, or a moment’s hesitation, he turns to the door and opens it up, ready to go back to them and be there, be there for their comfort. It hurts when he sees them bandaged up and bleeding, all bruised and beaten. It hurts when he comes back and they treat him like he’s a joy to have around, even though he’s the reason that they’re even in this mess, but he’ll try to make it better, he’ll try to be better. He still tastes burnt mint on his tongue as when he smiles at them. 

 

The gross mint stays and so does a coolness on his lips as he kisses scarred up cheeks and lipstick stained mouths. 


End file.
